Snow total

I am not happy with our weather.  I still have a few projects left to do before Winter starts, and it appears Winter has started early this year.  Where is my global warming?

Snow began Friday afternoon and didn’t let up until early Saturday morning. Kalispell saw a daily record of 7.3 inches, which also ranks second highest all-time for October, trailing behind 11 inches set on Oct. 26, 1946, according to the National Weather Service in Missoula.

A push of arctic air was expected to bring record cold to Northwest Montana through the weekend, the National Weather Service reported.

Lows Saturday night in the Flathead Valley are forecast to dip below zero, with wind gusts at 20 mph. Sunday’s high temperature is expected to top out in the 20s before plummeting below zero again. Wind chill values of minus 15 were likely.

The unseasonably cold temperatures should stick around through the week, with a chance of a slight warm up by next weekend.

It looks like we will be setting new record low temperatures today and over the next few days.

I spent part of today shoveling paths through the snow.  Not what I usually do in October.  And with our cold temperatures predicted, who know when - or if - the snow will melt this month?

Daisy usually wants to go outside early in the morning.  At 6 am Daisy put her head out the door after I opened it and looked and sniffed into the wind and cold and came back in the house.  15 minutes later I had to get up again to open the door again for Daisy.  Again the same thing.  Five minutes later, after her third attempt, she gave up and jumped up on the bed to sleep next to me.  Over two hours later I got up and found the wind had blown the door open a bit.  Sometimes the door doesn't catch strong and, even though I also have a screen door, the wind can blow the inside door open.  The temperature in the house was 51 degrees. 

In the morning for the cows I put out a few small alfalfa/grass hay bales into the wooden feeders.  In the afternoon I discovered the floor at one end of the large wooden feeder was down. Apparently a cow, or the bull, stepped into the wooden feeder to eat hay.  So, another work project for me to fix the feeder's floor.  Also in the afternoon I put out another large oat hay bale.   Afterwards, at one point, the cattle thought I may have put out more alfalfa/grass bales and they ran from the oat hay feeder in to the corral and the wooden feeders.  They were not happy to not find alfalfa/grass bales in the corral.